Below is a document depicting the use of a wiki and blogging site available through my school. The third, fourth and fifth grade teachers hosted a series of six, 30-40 minute, mixed aged, mini-course investigations of a topic of choice. I chose to introduce the basic concepts of blogging to each group.
REFLECTION
This was my first experience using the school's wiki site. I felt this was the perfect opportunity to experiment with the wiki being that the topic of investigation was teacher's choice. The purpose of the mini-courses were not content driven. Instead, these courses were an opportunity to build community among the different grade levels and to open the students' eye's to something new.
I encountered many new challenges along the way as I set up the course to share with the students. I had to learn the features of the wiki such as how to create a page, how to add content including videos and links to a page, and even how to set up the navigation from page to page. At the first presentation I hit a snag when the computer lab we met in did not have the Flash abilities needed to run the blogging video clip I had inserted. I also realized there was a lot of reading for the students prior to the activity and for some student this was a big challenge. By the second presentation, I had corrected the Flash issue and revised the instruction page to include a video of myself giving the directions. Inserting oral directions gave the students several options. They could still read the directions, or now listen to the directions, and even following along as they listened to my oral video directions.
I had six different groups, each for only 40 minutes of exploration. The exciting piece of the lesson was that it could continue at home, because I had the ability to grant permissions to the wiki. The wiki remained private but I could assign which students could log-in and continue the lesson and activity at home. I made sure to explain to the students that I would be able to monitor their activity to encourage proper usage.
I really enjoyed creating and presenting this mini-course. After learning about blogging, a short writing activity took place. I plan to update this site to incorporate into my language arts courses this year. Last year, I heard from the middle school teachers that the students needed to learn the proper etiquette for commenting on each other's work. When I created this mini-lesson, I also created a second lesson on the appropriate ways to comment. The course was too short to ever get to this portion of the lesson, but this year I intend to go through the whole process with my students. I can relate the idea of commenting to peer editing practices which I also introduce in my class.
REFLECTION
This was my first experience using the school's wiki site. I felt this was the perfect opportunity to experiment with the wiki being that the topic of investigation was teacher's choice. The purpose of the mini-courses were not content driven. Instead, these courses were an opportunity to build community among the different grade levels and to open the students' eye's to something new.
I encountered many new challenges along the way as I set up the course to share with the students. I had to learn the features of the wiki such as how to create a page, how to add content including videos and links to a page, and even how to set up the navigation from page to page. At the first presentation I hit a snag when the computer lab we met in did not have the Flash abilities needed to run the blogging video clip I had inserted. I also realized there was a lot of reading for the students prior to the activity and for some student this was a big challenge. By the second presentation, I had corrected the Flash issue and revised the instruction page to include a video of myself giving the directions. Inserting oral directions gave the students several options. They could still read the directions, or now listen to the directions, and even following along as they listened to my oral video directions.
I had six different groups, each for only 40 minutes of exploration. The exciting piece of the lesson was that it could continue at home, because I had the ability to grant permissions to the wiki. The wiki remained private but I could assign which students could log-in and continue the lesson and activity at home. I made sure to explain to the students that I would be able to monitor their activity to encourage proper usage.
I really enjoyed creating and presenting this mini-course. After learning about blogging, a short writing activity took place. I plan to update this site to incorporate into my language arts courses this year. Last year, I heard from the middle school teachers that the students needed to learn the proper etiquette for commenting on each other's work. When I created this mini-lesson, I also created a second lesson on the appropriate ways to comment. The course was too short to ever get to this portion of the lesson, but this year I intend to go through the whole process with my students. I can relate the idea of commenting to peer editing practices which I also introduce in my class.